Good afternoon...have the day off so figured i'd stop in.

That looks like a nice job Josiah, what is the power feeding?

I bought a new HP laptop from best buy..im on my 3rd one already (in 5 days)..keeps making some weird noise from the fan i think. not sure how i can get 3 bad laptops in a row but i guess its possible, or this noise is normal

 

Morning,

Been a while Miles. Good to see your doing good. I guess that work is keeping you busy. How is the truck doing?

Tom, on the weather this morning they mentioned Minnesota having some type of weather, I didn't catch it all. Rain, snow?

Here still in that great weather that is going to get a little warm this afternoon.

 

Good morning everyone.

We had some storms blow through last night John. Not sure of the significance, I slept through most of it. Looks like quite a bit on the radar though. Found out this morning I made the list for a promotion at work! I've been waiting quite awhile for that, and they only do this once a year.

 

Congratz on the potential promotion

 

Congratulations What is the rank now?

 

Congrats on the promotion Tom!

 

I was selected for Sergeant First Class. With my sequence number I should be promoted sometime after the start of the new year.

 

Congratulations Tom!

Miles, the power is feeding a transformer that is then feeding a powered gate. There will likely also be a courtesy plug, and power to a pole light and security camera.

 

Good morning guys.

Congrats Tom.

I hope everyone has a good weekend.

 

A 2500 foot run of 1-0 cable for a 480V, 3-phase power system to run a gate, a light, and a camera?

Must be a Government contract!

 

Thanks guys!

Hope everyone has a good Friday.

 

Congrats tom!

Truck is good John, i've put bigger injectors/turbo in it along with a few other things. Just put new front leaf springs in it last night as they cracked. Sitting waiting for an alignment, then going home to change oil, wash truck and leaving at 5 to head to englishtown, nj for diesel nationals

 

Ha! Close enough. MDC

 

Morning,

Nice when those promotions come in Tom. How does it work now. When I was in the service I got field promotions. I don't know if it is still the same? My Commander would come up to me and hand me new chevrons and say congrats and walk away.

Miles what are the diesel nationals?


Today is the my day to smoke ribs. about 30 lbs. of ribs. Put a nice rub on them and wrapped them in saran wrap into the frig. will put them in the smoker about 7 and cook them slow and easy until 2. I'm guessing about 20 people today at the pavilion. Another nice day of camping.

 

Evening guys, today was only the third day since July 20th where I didn't have to work, so I went for a great bike ride in the woods, a lot of the littler trees are losing their leaves rapidly, it smells like fall for sure.





On another not, when I finished my ride and went and started my car, and loaded my bike onto the rack then got back into the car, I was like, my AC isn't working, so I went to drive home and had no power steering, found out my serpentine belt snapped upon start up.

So I got a ride home, then went to the store to get a belt. You'd think it'd be easy to change the belt but no, it's a ford, and everything is a PITA. It never ceases to amaze me working on ford how whacky some of their stuff is set up. In order to change the serpentine on my escort, you need to remove the tensioner, so I did that, got the belt on and routed, and went to put the tensioner back on. Now, there's two tabs that stick out of the back of the tensioner and in order to get them back in successfully onto the block, you have to first start threading the bolt, which mind you, you cannot get the open end of a wrench on because it's pinned against the sheetmetal. Also, in order to get these tabs back into place, you need to then use your breaker bar to ADD tension to the belts, beyond what it's normal hold is, so you're hanging there off the breaker bar, pulling the tension tight as can be, and one of the tabs breaks.

So now you gotta go back to the store and spend another $45 dollars to get a new tensioner and attempt this process again. Second go around, I unbolt the top of the alternator and drop it down a bit so theres a bit more slack in the belt, unbolt the power steering lines from near by for more hand room, them I'm hanging on for dear life with the breaker bar, only able to get about 1/5 of a turn with the wrench on the bolt at a time, get the tabs in a bit, but they are so crooked it doesn't want to seat, keep hanging on, grab a tiny pry bar, push the tensioner into the block, it goes on a bit more, back to never ending 1/5 wrench turning, keep alternating with the pry bar and then a few more turns, a few more wiggles, finally got that thing on.

You're unable to get the open end of the wrench onto the bolt until its about 2/3 of the way on, something that should have taken a few minutes to do, took 3 hours between the couple of trips to the store and the slow bs of getting it done. And the other day I was looking at my belt and saying it needs to get replaced soon. Sorry for the rant, replacing that was just ridiculous.

This is how bad my old belt was vs new